My father was always a nonpracticing Jew. Nevertheless, he held on to two seats at our local synagogue, which he paid for every year. One weekend, my mother told him, “I’d like to go over to that synagogue, see what it’s like in there.” And so they went. The only problem was that when they got inside the synagogue, my father’s seats were occupied. So my father went right to the business office, where it was explained to him that they’d indeed sold his seats, twice; since he never did attend services, what harm would it do?
- Paul Newman, actor
- Paul Newman, actor
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
